To me, there is something inherently erotic in a woman transforming herself from the work-a-day world to the personal, shedding her public mask to reveal who she really is.

This poem was inspired by an advertisement in a magazine I saw in my dentist's office, one which showed a leggy model peeling back her hosiery to reveal silky smooth legs. I began musing who she might be doing it for, was there a regal Frenchman sitting off screen, drinking champagne and smoking a clove cigarette? Or how about her female lover, already freshly bathed and pink-scrubbed, waiting between silken sheets?

Ultimately I decided she was alone in the room, but she needed to share her realization that there were two sides to who she was with the world at large.

HER AVERAGE DAY

She slides into her room,
private, alone,
peels off her average day
one layer at a time.

Before the window
she strips off nylons,
jewelry, the cross at her throat.
Flips hairpins onto the bureau
then leans naked over the window sill
into the bat-black.

She balls her stockings
and hurls them,
blinking,
into the street below.

He races along
head down,
late for the bus,
until the sheer leg-skin
caresses his down turned face,
curling as a lover might
across his shoulder.

He draws it close,
breathing in the remnants
of her average day.
He sees legs crossed under a desk
imagines feet clacking along concrete
his mind’s eye following
the legs as they walk upstairs.

He balls the hosiery
and stuffs them
unthinking
into the pocket of his coat.